Rules of the South America Regional of the ACM ICPC
Mission
The Programming Contest
provides college students an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their
problem-solving and computer skills, awarding prizes according to these
abilites.
Moreover, it provides all
competing teams with equal conditions in order to select the best ones in
the region to the World Finals of the competition.
General Description
The South America Regional
Contest is the regional event for South America of the ACM Collegiate International Programming Contest.
During the contest, teams composed of up to three students work on 6 to 8
problems of project and implementation of algorithms within a limited amount
of time (5 hours). The
rules presented here follow the directions of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest
concerning its regional contests.
Organization
The rules of the Programming
Contest follow the directions set by the Steering Committee of the ACM Collegiate International Programming
Contest, presided by the Contest Director, William B. Poucher, Ph.D.,
Baylor University, Waco, Texas. The Contest Director names a Regional
Contest Director, who, in conjunction with the Regional Steering Committee,
is responsible for adapting the rules for each region. In South America the Regional Contest
Director (RCD) is Ricardo Dahab
(IC-Unicamp, Brazil). The regional steering committee for South America
is composed by:
Conditions
for Participating
Undergraduate and graduate
students in the area of Informatics and related who belong to South American
institutions may participate in the contest.
| Teams failing to comply
with any of the following requirements will be ruled ineligible to compete.
Any questions about eligibility should be directed to the RCD . |
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| Sponsoring
Institution |
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1. |
Each team and
coach represents its sponsoring institution. |
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2. |
The sponsoring
institution must be an institute of higher (post secondary) education,
typically a university, college, or an institute of technology. |
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| Team Coach |
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1. |
Typically, the coach
is a faculty member of the sponsoring institution. If not, a letter
of appointment from a representative of the institution must be provided. |
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2. |
The coach must fully
register teams in the
ICPC Registration System within the time set by these regional rules. |
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3. |
The coach
certifies team eligibility. |
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4. |
The coach is the
official point-of-contact. If unable to attend, the coach must
designate an on-site coach to be present during contest activities. |
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5. |
Only the coach
may file a complaint. A complaint must be sent to the RCD within two
business days of the completion of the regional contest. |
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| Team Eligibility |
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1. |
Each team must
have a coach. |
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2. |
Each team consists
of three contestants. Teams with fewer than three are ineligible. |
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3. |
Each contestant
and reserve must satisfy the following competitor eligibility
requirements. The Academic Term of Eligibility (ATE)
is the last full academic term in the calendar year during which the
regional contest is held. |
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a. |
During the ATE,
each competitor must be a student enrolled in a post-secondary degree
program at the sponsoring institution with at least a half-time load. |
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Note: |
Typically, competitors are
students 20 to 22 years of age who are pursuing undergraduate degrees
requiring substantial coursework in the computing sciences and
engineering. This rule is not to be construed as disqualifying co-op students,
exchange students, or students serving internships. Any questions about
the elegibility of a team member can be addressed to the RCD or any member
of the steering committee. |
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b. |
A competitor may
compete for only one institution during a contest year. |
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c. |
A competitor may
not have competed in more than one World Finals. |
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d. |
All but one
of the contestants must be in at most the 4th year of post-secondary study. |
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e. |
All competitors
must be in at most the 6th year of post-secondary study. |
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f. |
No competitor may
have earned a graduate degree. |
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g. |
In the event of
qualifying to advance to the World Finals, competitors must be prepared
to provide a history of work and educational experience including a
transcript to substantiate eligibility. |
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4. |
A team is not eligible
to compete until it has been accepted in the ICPC
Registration System. |
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5. |
Only fully registered
reserves may be substituted for contestants. Such substitutions must
be entered in the ICPC Registration System with the approval of the coach and the regional contest director
before the contest begins. |
Each sponsoring institution
may have up to TWO teams competing. There is a limit on the number of teams
which will be accepted at each site depending on the site's capacity. If
the number of registered teams does not reach the site's capacity, then
a THIRD team from the same school may be accepted. If, otherwise, the number
of registered teams exceeds the capacity, a selection will be made. In any
case, the criteria for selecting the teams that will participate in the
contest are (in order of decreasing priority):
1. Coverage:
as much as possible, the Organizing Committee will select teams coming from
different states and countries.
2. Date of registration:
teams with earlier registration dates will have preference, as long as they
have completed the registration procedure.
Important Dates
- September
30, 2002. Deadline for schools to register their teams. It is not
necessary to register the team members by this date.
- October
7, 2002. Teams receive confirmation of their registration from site
directors.
- October
21, 2002. Deadline for (i) team member's registration, and (ii) sending
the Qualification Statement, filled out and signed by the coach, who must
be a professor from the sponsoring institution or must have been appointed
by a professor of the institution to this function.
- October
28, 2002. Deadline for a team to complete all registration procedure
of his site (including payment of fees).
- 8
and 9 November, 2002. Contest dates.
Programming
Contest Procedures
1. Dates and
Sites
The South American
Regional ACM Programming Contest will take place in 7 sites: Buenos Aires,
in Argentina; Porto Alegre, Recife and São Paulo in Brasil; Copiapo,
in Chile; and Caracas and Barquisimeto, in Venezuela, at the same day
and hour.
The contest is scheduled
to happen on November 8 and 9, 2002.
2. Timetable
The timetables may
change from one site to another. Please look at (not all sites have web pages
yet; please check again soon):
Argentina
Brasil
Chile
Venezuela
3. Language
Printed material
related to the Programming Contest will be distributed in English only.
4. Resource Materials
Contestants may take
to the contest site printed resource materials, such as books, manuals and
program listings. Magnetically stored materials, such as versions of software
or data, will not be allowed.
5. Computing
Environment
The programming languages
of the contest are Pascal, C, C++ and Java.
Computer facilities will
vary depending of each site. Each team can use a single computer.
6. System Support
System support (Staff)
will be available during the contest, as well as backup equipment, to guarantee
smooth operation of the programming environment.
7. The Contest
The Programming Contest
consists of a collecion of 6 to 8 problems to be solved within 5 hours.
Teams should submit a possible
solution to a problem to the Judging Committee, thereby obtaining an acceptance
or rejection of the solution. In case of rejection, new solutions may be
submitted (see scoring below).
A contestant may submit
a claim of ambiguity or error in a problem statement by filling and sending
a Clarification Request to the judges. If they agree that an ambiguity
or error exists, a clarification will be issued to all contestants.
8. Discipline
Contestants must
not talk to anyone except members of their team and personnel designated
by the Regional Contest Director.
Any system problems that
may occur must be communicated to the support staff according to pre-established
procedures.
Any irregular behavior of
a contestant that jeopardizes the contest, according to the Contest Director's
criteria, may cause the team to be disqualified.
9. Alterations
on the Contest Duration
The Regional Contest
Director may alter the length of the contest in the event of unforeseen difficulties.
Should the contest duration be altered, all contestants will be notified
in a timely and uniform manner.
10. Scoring
The first criterion
for ranking the teams is the number of problems correctly solved. A solution
will be considered incorrect if:
a. the program
cannot be compiled correctly;
b. its running time exceeds
the time limit set for the instances in the judge's test set;
c. a runtime error occurs;
d. the program provides
an incorrect answer for some instance of the judge's test set;
e. the output format differs
from the one specified in the statement of the problem.
If the first criterion leads to
a tie, teams who have obtained their solutions in less total time
will be better ranked.
The total time is
the sum of the times consumed for each problem correctly solved. The time
consumed for a solved problem is the time elapsed from the beginning of the
contest to the submission of the accepted run plus 20 penalty minutes for
every rejected run for that problem regardless of submittal time. There is
no time consumed for a problem that is not solved.
The Programming Contest
Judging Committee is the only responsible for deciding the correctness of
the solutions presented for each problem. By consulting them, the Contest
Director will determine the winners of the competition. The Contest Director
and the Judging Committee have power to judge unforeseen situations, and
their decisions are final.
11. Attendance
All contestants
must participate in every required activity of the Programming Contest, which
are:
- the presentation session;
- the warm-up;
- the contest;
- the Awarding Ceremony and
Lunch.
Unjustified absences will automatically
disqualify the team and cause the prizes to be suspended.
Complaints,
Appeals, and Remedies
If irregularities or misconduct are observed
during the contest, team members or coaches should bring them to the attention
of the contest officials so that action may be taken as soon as possible.
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After the conclusion of the contest, coaches
may file complaints or appeals as follows:
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Within two (2) business
days after the contest |
The coach may file a complaint
by sending an email containing a text message with no enclosures to
the RCD, copied to the Contest Manager. |
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Within five (5) business
days after the contest |
The RCD shall respond to the
complaint. |
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Within six (6) business
days after the contest |
The coach may file an appeal with
the Appeals Committee through the ICPC Registration System. |
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Within ten (10) business
days after the contest |
The Appeals Committee will investigate
the circumstances of the appeal and notify the coach and RCD of their
decision. |
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This process is governed as follows:
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The results of the regional
contest are not final until the complaints and appeals process has run
its course. |
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Only coaches may file
complaints and appeals. |
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An appeal must be based
on one or more of the following circumstances: violations of the Rules,
misconduct by teams, or gross misconduct by contest officials with the
intent to do harm. |
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The decisions of the
judges are final. Specifically, a decision on a problem submission
MAY NOT be appealed. |
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The Appeals Committee
overturns decisions only under extraordinary circumstances. |
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The decision of the Appeals
Committee is final. |
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No additional finals
invitations will be given to remedy to a complaint. |
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All complaints will be
acknowledged. |
Advancing
to the World Finals and Prizes
Winners will receive
a Certificate and all contestants will receive a Certificate of Achievement.
Further prizes may be given by the sites. See the sites homepages.
The winner of the
South America Regional Contest, appointed by the RCD automatically qualifies
to the World Finals. The ICPC Executive Director may provide the RCD with
additional slots in the World Finals. The best qualified teams in the regional
contest are assigned to the slots such that a sponsoring institution is not
assigned more than a slot.
Contacts
Any doubts about details
not mentioned here shall be submitted to the Organizing Committee, which
has the power to judge unforeseen situations.
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